Too bad that none of the languages I know are useful to my biggest hobby (unless you count batch logic and some vb.net).

I used to be a bit intimidated by it, but after putting a couple under my belt, teaching yourself other languages isn't too horrible. My bread and butter these days is Java, but I've worked with some nasty (from a human readability point of view) languages at this point and survived.

Google_Frog wrote:That exceptional talent block is out of place. How do you tell exceptional talent from hard working, is there even a worthwhile difference? According to that you need exceptional talent to be a gamer.

There's no worthwhile difference, aside from hard work tends to be less focused on one specific thing.

People who are "talented" at something just tend to spend a lot of time doing that or similar things. In rare cases there is some genetic predisposition, but that usually is more for the case of physical predispositions.

Yes, hard work can equal talent, at least in this arena. That isn't to say that hard work can equal the potential eloquence that talent can provide.

In other words, I can create a function to do a specific thing. Being less talented but hard working I might achieve my goal in 10 lines, where someone with more talent could do it in 3.

The end result is the same, but the talented individual's solution in this example is more eloquent. That is not to say that talented individuals always do things eloquently (more often than not, the opposite is the case).

I think the chart is more of a "do you think of yourself as talented" type deal.

Also, it frustrates me and I remember a few topics on the subject turning in to fights... but to me the "talent" that an excellent musician or artist or programmer has is their ability to choose something to focus on and stick to it until they are excellent at it... being good at [something] isn't a talent so much as being the kind of person who has the drive and focus to get EXCELLENT at [something]... incidentally people with "natural talent at [something]" tend to not learn the necessary habits to get EXCELLENT at [something] because it comes too easy to them and they just coast by as being GOOD at [something].

EX:
I am not talented, I am skilled at modeling because I work very hard at it...

I find a lot of people around here claim they are talented, when in reality they think they are but never actually put it to the test. There are people here who think they are skilled because they have over inflated egos but in reality they never put the time in.

Talent can make picking up skills easier.
Skill is effort that makes up for a lack of talent.